The loot awaited them behind the throne room, in a hidden chamber that opened upon the Great Necromancer's death. When they entered it, the doorway collapsed behind them. The entire Crawling Mausoleum had ceased to move and started to crumble. It wouldn't fall apart completely, but they felt a sense of urgency to leave. Still, in an hour, the boss would respawn, and it would be as if this battle had never happened.

  As a level 70 act boss, he dropped quite a bit of loot. Among the piles of items was his unique staff [Ruler's Measure] that could only be used by [Necromancers], and a unique ring called [Souldrinker] that reduced the wearer's lowest elemental resistance by a further 60% in exchange for granting increased health points and doing increased damage based on the health pool.

  BlackKokoro turned to TripleBatsuDance questioningly, and she responded with a wry smile. "Yes, you can use that. As long as you're under the effect of my auras, that resistance hit won't matter."

  The witch's expression lit up, and she immediately put on the ring. It was a band made from a black stone with a hole in the middle, as if a gem set into it had been taken out long ago. When it was in place, a faint golden light shone inside the opening. Looking at her stat screen, she found her divine resistance sitting at a negative 112% when not affected by the dancer's auras. It didn't scare her much since she had died from a single arrow earlier. She couldn't be oneshot more than she already would be anyway.

  But doing more damage, that was something she would always like. The ring itself didn't give too much health, but it did give her an overall 10% more total damage. Maybe scaling some health wasn't a bad idea. After all, if she died from every random mob's attack before she could cast her spell, she might as well not exist at all.

  As for the gold, she split it with IpponSakura, since she had died earlier, too. The samurai girl refused, saying she had more than enough, but BlackKokoro wouldn't let it go until she finally relented and accepted it. It wasn't enough for even a tenth of a revive at her level, but it was better than nothing.

  "What comes after this?" the witch asked curiously while vacuuming up the items. The moment she picked up the last of the gold, a waypoint made of stone appeared from among the body parts making up the floor as they crumbled away. At the same time, the wall at the back of the room fell apart to reveal a hole leading outside.

  "Normally, we would enter the endgame once we leave through that door there," TripleBatsuDance said as she walked toward it. But given that the ziggurat had moved across the entire Undead Wastes and almost reached the Jagged Pass, it was safe to say that it would not be the case. They would still have to travel across the region to reach the endgame.

  "Muu, I'm tired of walking..." AFKat complained like a spoiled child. She didn't feel physically exhausted, but she was mentally drained after everything that happened. If only there were a hot spring resort where they could take a day or two off from the trappings of this world.

  "We should find a place to sleep anyway," suggested MANhera.

  "How about Dragonheart's Sanctum?" said KuroYasha with a sardonic expression before quickly hiding it behind her sleeve. From time to time, she still mentioned going back to enact revenge on the people who permakilled her in the streets. Mainly the Order of Justice and Love and Peace Alliance guild members.

  "I went back earlier. They're still keeping a close eye on the plaza, yeah." IpponSakura shook her head with a sigh. The guards were clearly getting ready to fight her upon recognizing her demihuman avatar. It would likely take some political and diplomatic maneuvering before the human and demihuman players could reconcile.

  Neither of which anybody in their group wanted to be involved with. That was why they had left the city in the first place.

  "How about the elven village? That place doesn't have many players sticking around," suggested WolfGodKotaro.

  "Good idea. Just gotta hope they don't have any Order of Justice enforcers there, or the whole place will be swarming with them before long," said TripleBatsuDance.

  "Let them come." KuroYasha's eyes shone with malicious glee.

  Thus, the party stepped into the waypoint and teleported away together, leaving behind only AFKat. She left the party to give MANhera her spot so that she wouldn't be alone. After all, she could neither be damaged nor be physically stopped, so if an [Assassin] attacked, she would be able to leave.

  "You're still following us, aren't you?" AFKat turned around and looked across the messy room. Body parts fell from the ceiling, and the walls were in constant motion, so it was impossible to tell if somebody was really there. If it was the [Darkstalker], she wouldn't know either way.

  She felt something touch her lower back and turned around. Ansazu had appeared from her shadow and stabbed her with their three-pronged dagger. They should have known that her build was invulnerable, so why did they even try attacking? Without missing a beat, she grabbed Ansazu by the throat again. However, the [Assassin] dodged her grasp this time and sank back into their shadow. But that locked them in place, and AFKat lunged at them, pushing them to the ground.

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  "What is even your goal?" she asked while keeping the figure covered in bandages pinned. "You could try to kill anybody else."

  "I just had to try," Ansazu responded with a self-deprecating sniff.

  "What's going on here?" TripleBatsuDance appeared from the waypoint in a flash of light and asked. She had come back when AFKat didn't follow them right away. "Huh, you again! Keep them pinned like that, I'll show 'em."

  The dancer equipped her mask and pulled back her whip. But AFKat felt Ansazu sink into their shadow, which now covered the entire ground underneath them. She tried to grab her clothes, but they crumbled into darkness as the [Darkstalker] disappeared once more.

  "They're still in this room somewhere," said TripleBatsuDance while looking around cautiously.

  "Let's just go. Not like they're harming anybody." AFKat shook her head and pulled the dancer along to the waypoint. Ansazu knew where they were going from their conversation, so they would come after them. But they made a habit of having a night guard, so the [Assassin] wouldn't be able to kill them in their sleep.

  Before leaving, AFKat looked across the room one last time, but Ansazu didn't appear again. A pop-up menu showed the world map with the waypoints she had already tagged, and she gestured at the Faewoods Bastion. However, she froze for a moment when she saw that Araheim was unavailable. She should have activated it when Heroic Age rushed her through the campaign. How could that have happened?

  Light surrounded her, and they stood on the waypoint in the Faewoods Bastion. The others waited a few steps away, looking around nervously. There were far more players in the small town than anticipated.

  "What's going on here?" AFKat asked as she stepped out of the circle with TripleBatsuDance.

  "I don't know, but Kotaro-kun is trying to figure it out~" BlackKokoro responded. The beast boy was talking to a level 49 player who seemed to have made it through the Cursed Faewoods only recently. He soon bade the person farewell and returned to the party.

  "Araheim has fallen," he declared. Everybody stared at him questioningly, and he continued, "The Varclaw army has overrun the city, and the players had to flee through the Lost Mines of Morakan. He didn't know much either."

  "Was that part of the plan?" MANhera asked KuroYasha.

  "I have not heard of anything like that," the black fox responded. She opened one narrow eye and peered across the players swarming the town. Most of them were around the level one would expect from this region, although a few higher-level players who had decided to stay in Araheim after the game turned real could be seen mingling with them. One was a level 79 human [Warrior] named TypeTwo.

  TripleBatsuDance picked up on her signal and walked over with her mask removed to talk to him. After a quick exchange, she returned with him in tow. The man looked like the generic hero type, a handsome young man with brown hair and eyes, wearing simple steel armor and a longsword on his belt.

  "We were able to defend the city for some time since the mobs over there are only level 38. But when General Gravus joined the battle, everything changed," he explained. His expression was anguished as he recalled the events of a few days ago.

  The Siege of Araheim was a time paradox situation in the game. It was an eternal siege on the outside, but once one entered the city, it was peaceful. After all, players could only enter after defeating General Gravus and breaking the siege. However, since it was a game, the army reset the moment a party went through the gates, so that the next party coming along could do the campaign quest.

  It would appear that was no longer the case, as the Varclaw army suddenly launched a massive attack on the city one night and overran the NPC defenders on the walls. The players were awoken and joined the defense, holding off the attackers quite well. But since they respawned in the camp outside, it was an endless assault.

  Then, General Gravus broke through the main gate and killed many lower-level players instantly. He had somehow leveled up to 42 even though he used to be level 40. And he did way more damage than ever before. Even higher-level players with defensive builds took massive hits and had to retreat to avoid dying in town. TypeTwo was among those.

  The last he saw of General Gravus was as he cut down a level 83 player in a flurry of strikes, even though his health bar was already depleted and cracked. It matched AFKat and her party's experience, although they were able to defeat him back then. The game world was breaking down more and more.

  "Muu, what is that shut-in god doing?" the little catgirl grumbled as they separated from TypeTwo and made their way through the small town. Most high-level players used the waypoint to travel to Dragonheart's Sanctum, while lower-level ones lingered, unsure what to do. Some returned to towns from previous acts, while others considered how to proceed.

  "Maybe he's grinding the endgame and not noticing all these issues." TripleBatsuDance's answer sounded believable. After all, a god who could turn a game real with a snap of his finger could have solved all these problems instantly, too. He was likely just not paying attention to things that didn't affect him until they did.

  "Surely, some lower-level players permadied in Araheim and complained to him when they got the options on how to proceed presented to them." MANhera scratched her chin thoughtfully. "He must know about this by now."

  "I'm not that opposed to having the game become less... predictable," said WolfGodKotaro. BlackKokoro and IpponSakura nodded in agreement.

  "It sounds exciting," KuroYasha added with a smile. She seemed to treat this as new content. As someone who had played Prison of Eternity for many years, she had long since grown tired of rushing through the same old campaign whenever she leveled a new build after an update.

  "We should get BlackKokoro through the campaign soon before it ceases to exist," said AFKat.

  "I don't really mind. I haven't really been paying attention to the story since Dragonheart's Sanctum," the witch admitted, sticking out her tongue with an embarrassed smile. At this point, it didn't matter to her anymore. Being with her friends was more important than learning the lore, especially when they now essentially lived in this world.

  And even without knowing the lore, she could appreciate the depth in the enemy monster and boss designs. Their visuals conveyed history and culture better and more organically than NPC dialogue telling her outright. As essentially a person of this world, she would want to find out through her own research. Even if that research sometimes involved blowing things up.

  "Let's first find a place to sleep. We'll discuss this tomorrow," AFKat said with a long-suffering sigh.